


Where She Learned That

by mrs_d



Series: Tumblr Fics [18]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Established Relationship, Future Fic, Kid Fic, M/M, probably really schmoopy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-04
Updated: 2018-04-04
Packaged: 2019-04-18 03:49:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,171
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14204394
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mrs_d/pseuds/mrs_d
Summary: “Please don’t tell that story again, Daddy,” Amanda begs, but her husband, Isaac, raises his eyebrows and looks at Steve with a little too much curiosity in his eyes.





	Where She Learned That

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by [this.](http://mrsdawnaway.tumblr.com/post/172376798539/extrasassylampshade)
> 
> (P.S. If you want to imagine that Amanda here is the same Amanda from [Love Is](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11684886), I will not stop you. The stories are somewhat connected thematically.)

“It was _not_ your first word, Amanda,” Steve laughs as he tops up his daughter’s glass with the sparkling grape juice she brought for the occasion. “Give your dad and me _some_ credit.”

“But it _was_ the first word you screamed out loud in the grocery store,” Sam admits. He tilts his glass in Steve’s direction, and Steve grabs the other bottle, gives him a splash of the good stuff. Not too much — Sam’s not supposed to drink with his new pills — but the doctor said a little wouldn’t hurt, and it isn’t every day that their daughter comes over for dinner and announces that she’s pregnant.

“Please don’t tell that story again, Daddy,” Amanda begs, but her husband, Isaac, raises his eyebrows and looks at Steve with a little too much curiosity in his eyes.

Steve smirks; he can’t leave the guy hanging. He settles beside Sam on the loveseat, ignoring the slight twinge in his back that the movement brings on. Sam sends him a look, sees exactly what Steve’s about to do, and sips his wine without a word.

“Come on, now, don’t take away an old man’s source of joy,” Steve tells Amanda. “Embarrassing my kids is about all I’ve got left.”

Amanda rolls her eyes and mutters something about drama queens. Isaac grins, but covers it with his glass.

“But you know, that story’s pretty tame,” Steve goes on, ignoring her. “If you want, I could talk about that time you thought you saw a ghost—”

“Nope,” Amanda says quickly.

“—when you were in the bath—”

“Don’t need to hear that one!”

“—and you came running out into the living room, naked and dripping water—”

“Dad!” Amanda cries, and Steve’s laughing too hard to finish the story, even if he wanted to.

“Okay, okay,” he relents after a moment, still chuckling. “So, here’s the thing: I should’ve known it was coming...”

* * *

The Avengers used to tease him relentlessly about his potty mouth. “Language, Cap,” Rhodey would gasp whenever Steve swore, and within minutes everyone would join in, claiming that he wasn’t setting a very good example for the rest of them. Tony, who used several colorful words himself, was by far the worst, but over time Steve was able to clean up his vocabulary enough that he could chide them right back from time to time. Once the team fell apart, unfortunately, Steve eased up on his efforts to stop cursing like a sailor.

(“Like a soldier, you mean,” Sam corrects him.)

He managed to — mostly — turn it off when he was in public, of course, and the old habit of never cussing in front of a lady came back once he wasn’t exposed to Natasha all the time. At home, though, when it was just him and Sam, he never bothered.

(“Then you came along,” says Sam, reaching over to pat Amanda’s arm.

“And Steve stopped swearing all at once, right?” asks Isaac. Steve can’t tell if he’s serious, but if he is, he’s about to be very disappointed.)

When Amanda was born, Steve started to get more self-conscious about his language, dropping his voice when he swore, but accidents happened.

“She’s three months old, there’s no way she understands me,” Steve told a very skeptical Darlene Wilson, when he sliced his finger peeling potatoes at Thanksgiving and the f-word slipped out. He looked at Sam for support on this, but Sam’s raised eyebrows told him that if he wanted to give his mother sass, he was on his own. So Steve apologized and promised it wouldn’t happen again—

(“But you know your grandmother, God rest her,” Sam adds. “It was Christmas before she forgave him.”)

Amanda started to talk, right on schedule, and soon the house was filled with the cheerful babble that only toddlers are able to produce. Sam called it word salad, and in it, Steve could hear bits of every voice she’d been exposed to on a given day. This was when he started to get really careful. With Sam’s help, he weeded out most of the bad words, replacing them with kid-friendly alternatives like _heck, sugar,_ and _peas and rice._

(“Somewhere, your other grandmother was probably pretty happy about that last one,” Steve muses. “She used to wash my mouth out with soap like you wouldn’t believe.”

“I would believe it,” says Sam with no hesitation.)

Still, nobody’s perfect. “Soldiers gonna soldier,” Steve overheard Sam say to his brother when Steve stubbed his toe at Gideon’s house and let out a loud “Son of a—” right in front of Amanda and was forced into a quick redirect.

“Darn,” he forced out between his teeth, and Amanda giggled.

“Daddy funny,” she said, before she launched into an incomprehensible story that featured a puppy dog, an apple, and a balloon.

“That’s awesome, kiddo,” said Sam when she was finished. Steve was still rubbing his sore toe.

(“So, really, there was no reason for either of us to be surprised when it happened,” Sam concludes, and Steve nods, grateful for the opportunity to take a sip of his drink. Isaac looks fully enthralled now, and even Amanda is watching with anticipation, though she must have heard the story a dozen times already.)

But Steve _was_ surprised, because they were at the supermarket, loading carrots and lettuce and enough diapers to sink a ship onto the conveyor. Steve wasn’t really paying attention when Amanda started babbling at the cashier. He could hardly hear her, the way she was talking shyly to her doll, and apparently the cashier couldn’t either.

“What was that, sweetheart?” the cashier asked. She had to ask a few times before Amanda answered—

(“And then,” Sam says dramatically, “came the moment of truth.”)

Amanda blew out a huge toddler breath and shouted, “Fuck!”

* * *

“You didn’t,” Isaac exclaims.

“I did,” Amanda laughs. “Apparently. I don’t remember it.”

“Bet everybody in that store does, though,” Sam chuckles.

“So, is that the kind of language you’ll be teaching our baby?” asks Isaac teasingly.

“Like you’re one to talk,” Amanda answers him.

Steve grins. She married a military man, too; he knows what she’s in for. Sam laughs a little and sets his glass down on an end table and takes Steve’s hand. Steve runs his thumb over the veiny ridges, touches the warm metal of his gold wedding band. It’s faded a little over time, but it’s still here. 

Sam smiles at him the way he always has, and for a moment there’s nobody else in the world. Then he glances up, sees Isaac’s hand is on Amanda’s belly, where only a slight bump is visible, and recognizes how full his heart is, how the baby is going to fill it up even more.

He’s going to be a grandfather. He blinks his abruptly wet eyes and squeezes Sam’s hand. Sam sends him a knowing look and clears his throat.

“So, Amanda thought she saw a ghost in the bathroom one time,” he begins, and Steve’s laughter almost manages to drown out Amanda’s groan.


End file.
